


Safe Inside Myself

by idrilhadhafang



Series: Star Wars Rewrites — Backstory [21]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Community: trope_bingo, Dark Ben Solo, Hurt Poe Dameron, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mood Whiplash, POV Poe Dameron, Poison, Poisoning, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Torture, Torturer Ben Solo, Twenty Four Hours to Live
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 13:31:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13435731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: After being recovered from the custody of one of Snoke’s Knights, Poe Dameron has a whole new set of problems.





	Safe Inside Myself

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Twenty-Four Hours To Live
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing. 
> 
> Author’s Notes: Got the title from the Evanescence song “My Last Breath”. Poe doesn’t die here, but he comes close, and I think the song did a good job at sort of tying everything together. Also, trigger warning for poison.

Just because they’d rescued him from a Knight of Ren didn’t mean that his suffering was necessarily over. The poison was still working through his veins, and he could already hear his teammates talking about needing a medic, something.  
  
Even through the fog, he could see someone. Ben. His Ben. Telling him to hold on.  
  
“Ben,” Poe whimpered, reaching out towards the image of Ben —  
  
— only to go straight through thin air.   
  
“Just hold on, Poe,” Snap said. “Help is on the way.”  
  
Poe could only hope. His skin already felt cold, so very cold. Everything was so cold. His forehead was already breaking out in sweat, and yet his head...  
  
His head was practically  _spinning._  
  
His head was spinning, and his skin was coated in sweat, and he was already coughing furiously. So this was how he was going to die.   
  
“Ben...” He rasped out the words. “Oh, Ben...”  
  
***  
  
It was on Yavin that Ben heard it, and he was practically up on his feet. He ran towards the hangar faster than he could think, and Jamie followed. “Ben! What are you doing?”  
  
“Poe’s in danger.”  
  
"You can’t just go running off like that — ’’  
  
“If I don’t, he’ll die, Jamie.”  
  
Jamie’s face changed. It was clear she was worried, but she was especially worried about Poe. “Where do we go?”  
  
***  
  
Even catching up to Poe, Ben’s heart sank. Poe was coughing, his eyes glazed over in that moment, and he looked like he was practically in another galaxy. Even looking over Poe, Ben felt a sort of mixture of anger towards the being who’d done this and tenderness towards Poe. Angry tenderness. Protectiveness. And it all hurt, but stars...  
  
“We don’t know where the antidote is,” Snap said. “I bet that woman knows, but...”  
  
“The woman who poisoned him?”  
  
Snap nodded. “The very one.”  
  
“Then we’ve got to find her.”  
  
No one hesitated. They were all willing to do what they could on Poe’s behalf. All of them, always. Including Ben.   
  
***  
It took time before they found the person responsible, but Ben was more than relieved when they did. Even removing her helmet, Ben was shocked at how she appeared like a normal-looking woman, someone who could blend into a crowd. Monsters shouldn’t have the ability to blend into crowds. Let alone the monster who had done this to his husband.   
  
Asking straight up hadn’t worked. Mind-tricking hadn’t worked. It was chasing that first image of Poe in her mind that Ben knew where his ideas were coming from. They came from the sort of place where the Light did not touch. The place where the Dark reigned. Where things that Ben usually found repulsive seemed almost logical.   
  
“Where’s the antidote?” Ben said. “Where. Is it?”  
  
“I’ll — never — tell you — ’’  
  
“Where. Is. The antidote?” And even in between his fury, that white hot fury that rose up in him, there was something else. Fear. Genuine fear. He couldn’t be without Poe, couldn’t exist without him, and the idea of living without his husband, his moons and stars, his starlight was unthinkable.   
  
 _If he dies...dear stars if he dies..._  
  
Arevya laughed. “You’re in love with him. That’s rich. You Jedi never fail to surprise me in your hypocrisy, do you?”  
  
“Where. Is. The antidote?”  
  
Pushing further. Further. It was too terrifyingly easy to get caught up in the wave of memories — memories of a young girl whose planet wasn’t helped by other Senators, other Jedi at that, a young activist gone off the deep end.   
  
Every memory told a story. This was no exception.   
  
“Get out of my head, Jedi scum.”  
  
Ben withdrew. “This isn’t me,” he said. “I don’t want to do this.”  
  
“Then you’re weak, and your precious pilot will die.”  
  
That was enough for Ben to practically lunge back into her mind. “WHERE’S THE ANTIDOTE, YOU PIECE OF SCUM?”  
  
He wasn’t gentle in going through her mind. He couldn’t. Rage was taking over, and the Dark Side was all but goading him on —  
  
No. He couldn’t do this. He was going too far, what was he doing? He withdrew, and Arevya croaked out, “The safe...it’s in the safe...”  
  
And even going through the safe and finding the antidote, Ben couldn’t shake the horror of what he had done. Jamie looked at him in horror. “How could you, Ben?”  
  
“I didn’t — I couldn’t — ’’ And even all those felt like excuses.  _I can’t live without him._  
  
“Jedi don’t torture. Poe...Poe wouldn’t want you to do that.”  
  
Ben’s shame only built. Then, “I'm...afraid.”  
  
 _Because I don’t just love him; he’s air. He’s air and stars and moons and sky, he’s my ground and sky, and being without him —_  
  
Ben couldn’t fathom it.   
  
“Fear of loss is a path to the — ’’  
  
“Kriff the Dark Side!” Ben said.  _Because I can’t live without him. Dear stars, I can’t._  
  
“I’m just scared for you,” Jamie said softly. “That’s all.”  
  
***  
  
Even as they led the woman (known as Arevya Ren) away, it should have been satisfying. It should have, seeing that disgusting schutta (and Ben didn’t care whether or not it was offensive; he was still raging) in stuncuffs. But the truth was, he was terrified for Poe. If Poe died...if the antidote didn’t work...  
  
 _What if it does?_  
  
Ben wiped his brow. Stars, he had a feeling that if he lost Poe...  
  
The thought was inconceivable. He gripped his hands into fists, so hard that they hurt.   
  
“Hey." One of the pilots, Kare, walked over towards him, and he relaxed his fists. “You okay?”  
  
“Fine.”  
  
Kare smiled. “Commander Dameron’s gonna be okay,” she said. “The medics are pretty good.”  
  
Ben nodded. He could only hope. The very idea of living without him, facing the galaxy without his moons and stars...  
  
He entered the medbay. Poe was terribly sweaty and gasping for breath, but he was breathing, alive, and the antidote...judging by his growing stronger Force presence, his husband was pulling through.   
  
Thank the stars.   
  
He knelt by Poe’s side, stroked back locks of black hair. He smiled. “I came to find you, Starlight,” he said. “I was so scared for you...”  
  
He kissed Poe’s forehead. When he turned to look at Kare, she was smiling faintly. “You really should sleep,” she said.   
  
“I’m not leaving Poe.”  
  
Ben got into one of the chairs and sat back, eyes open. He couldn’t sleep, and yet he was so tired...  
  
He fell asleep, uneasily, in the medbay, his dreams full of all too familiar images of a man in a mask, and Arevya Ren, staring up at him accusingly, judging him.   
  
***  
  
When Poe awoke in the medbay, his first thought was that the afterlife probably didn’t have to be a medbay. (Assuming there was an afterlife, of course) Then he saw Ben standing above him, practically beaming, and he wondered if there was some sort of instance where Ben had somehow died as well, and —  
  
“Hi, Poe.”  
  
“Ben.” Stars, even his voice sounded wrecked. “Am I — ’’  
  
“Dead? No, thank the stars.” Ben kissed his forehead, then his cheeks, hastily, almost hurriedly. “I thought...stars, if you had died — ’’  
  
Poe beamed up at him, leaned in for a kiss. “I’m here,” he said. “Really. I’m all right.”  
  
They broke the kiss, and Ben’s face...stars, Poe would give just about everything for that beloved face to be above him every day. For the rest of their lives.   
  
“Hey, you two.” Jess. Poe turned to look at her, and she was smiling affectionately, hands in her pockets. “Ben,” she said, “You should get some rest.”  
  
“Medic’s orders?” Ben said with a yawn.   
  
Jess nodded. “He was so worried about you,” she said. “I mean, he’s been at your bedside for several days; I don’t think I saw him sleep. Not well, at least.”  
  
“I can see that,” Poe said. He kissed Ben’s hand, almost prince-like. “Get some sleep, angel.”  
  
Ben turned to look at him, smiling broadly. “You have no idea you’re an angel to me,” he said. He turned to Jess. “Do you have a cot?”  
  
“Yeah.” Jess said.   
  
Ben lay down on the cot and put a pillow underneath his head. He looked almost adorably too big for the cot, too tall, but he compensated by tucking his legs in towards his chest as he lay on his side. Poe turned to look at him even as he smiled. “Stars, you’re so cute.”  
  
Ben yawned. “Am I?”  
  
“You’re precious."   
  
Ben sighed, mock-huffily. “I am a Jedi. I am not ‘cute’.”  
  
“Too bad. You’re my Jedi. And you’re stuck with me.”  
  
Ben smiled up at him. “I’m hardly stuck with you. I’m here because I choose to be.”  
  
“Same.”   
  
Ben looked up at him, his eyes practically huge. “You scared me,” he said. “I thought...I couldn’t bear it if I lost you."  
  
“I’m not going anywhere. Now you,” Poe said. “Get some rest."  
  
“Medic’s orders?” Ben teased.   
  
Poe laughed. “I’d be a bad medic.”  
  
“You’d be a very handsome medic.” Ben was rambling almost dreamily. "The sort who’d...anyone would consider lucky to end up in your medbay.”  
  
Ben was out in minutes. Poe didn’t know if it was just him valuing Poe’s opinion over the rest, or that Ben was just that tired, or both, but either way, Ben presented a pretty adorable image, curled up on his side, eyes closed, hair falling around his beautiful, peaceful face. Poe propped himself up on one elbow just to watch him before getting out of bed.   
  
Stars, his limbs still felt shaky. But he made it to find a blanket for Ben and drape it over him, tucking in his feet and hands too. He didn’t want Ben to be cold. It was odd, him caretaking Ben, but sometimes he got the feeling that despite his size and him treating Poe like he was fragile, Ben was the one who needed to be taken care of. For someone so big and powerful and strong, Ben was so vulnerable. He took Ben’s hand and kissed it again, watching his half smile on his lips, and feeling a sort of adoration for his husband that seemed to surround them both, encompassing them in their own little world where poison couldn’t reach them.   
  
And thank the stars for that.   
  
“I love you,” he whispered, before going back to his own bed. Ben looked so innocent in that moment, so unlike the raging hurricane that had fought so hard to get the guy responsible. Ben murmured some sort of sweet nonsense before they both fell asleep, safe with each other. 


End file.
